Fake letter was teaching tool, District 125 official says

Promise of grades for cash was used to illustrate history lessons for 'years'; unknown who passed it off as school program

July 13, 2013|By Lisa Black, Chicago Tribune reporter

A Stevenson High School teacher — not a student — created a fake letter that promised freshmen they could buy their way out of trouble and earn extra credit with cash, the school district's superintendent said Friday.

Officials don't know who distributed the letter and misrepresented it as a real school pilot program, said Eric Twadell, superintendent of Stevenson High School District 125 in northwest suburban Lincolnshire.

But after the letter made the rounds on social media this week — and school officials spent Wednesday assuring the school community it was a student hoax — they learned that a teacher initially had designed the letter as part of a lesson plan on the Catholic Church's use of indulgences in the 1500s, Twadell said.

"When we first saw that thing, it is so silly and ridiculous, our first response was, it's a hoax," Twadell said.

"It turned out a teacher had created it and used it as a modern-day example of what papal indulgences may look like compared to 500 years ago in the medieval realm. People would pay off the Pope for ridiculous things. … I think (the teacher) used it as an illustrative tool."

He said he did not know which teacher wrote the original letter, and that with summer school going on, "this has been a low priority."

Stevenson teachers have used the letter for "many, many years" to teach a unit on medieval Rome in world history classes, he said.

Written on what appeared to be official Stevenson High stationery, the letter announced the program that would allow freshmen "to make financial donations to ease academic and extracurricular obligations." For a $20 donation, the letter continued, a student would receive five extra-credit points. For $35, a student could be exempted from a test.

An image of the letter, dated July 8 and signed by a fictional administrator, was sent to an unknown number of people.

Since then, school officials have posted a message on the school's Facebook page and assured others who called in with questions that the letter was a hoax. A contact number on the letter belongs to a social studies teacher, whose voice mail greeting repeats the message about the hoax, ending with "This is not something the district would ever endorse."